Monday, May 28, 2012

It's not officially announced yet, but as usual you'll learn it first on Disney and more: Hong Kong Disneyland Grizzly Trail Grand Opening will happen on July 13. It was previously scheduled for July 20 but apparently HKDL want to open the land as soon as possible, and July 13 is now the Grizzly Trail grand opening date. Can we expect some soft-opening before that date? Mmmh, may be, but probably not before the end of June or the first days of July.

For HKDL fans - and all Disney fans - it's a good news as not only Grizzly Trail will add a brand new land at HKDL - a kind of Frontierland, which was missing until now at HKDL, but also a different one and with a new and unique coater attraction. Can't wait to discover the town of Grizzly Gulch!

So, how will it look? Well, these last months, you've seen plenty of pictures and videos of the works at Grizzly Trail but i thought that it might be the right time to have a look again at the artwork which was unveiled at the D23 Expo in 2009 as WDI renderings are generally very accurate with the final result. So, you'll find below my 2009 previous article with great pictures shot at that time by Andy Castro whom i thanks again!

One more thing: who will be at HKDL for Grizzly Trail Grand Opening on July 13?

Grizzly Trail will be one of the three new lands of HKDL and with the Grizzly Peak attraction and the Grizzly Gulch town it will be an interesting new version of a "Frontierland" theming. Before i go further i want to warn you that there will be major spoilers all along the article. If you don't want to know anything about the storyline, this is definitely not the right article! Also, click on each pictures to see them in big size and explore details.

Here we go for the artwork, and i've also included pictures of the Grizzly Trail model. I've succeeded to have the story line of the Grizzly Peak ride and now the artworks below should be in the right order of the different ride scenes.

This first artwork show the Grizzly Peak entrance. note that the whole area seems to have pine trees all around. When you will enter the entrance of the Grizzly Peak ride, you'll enter the mine company office and the next room will convince you that the mine company is still in operation.

Once you get aboard the mine vehicles, you will first turn underground to explore the mine. Then you're supposed to climb up the Grizzly Mountain through tunnel 8 ( the number means "wealth" in Cantonese ) ...but a bear use the track switch lever to scratch his back, switching the track to lead the mine cars to go to tunnel 4 ( which means "dead" in Cantonese )!

...The tunnel 4 is actually a home of bear family and it seems that you are not welcomed. Before you get attacked, you escape!

More sketches were done for that scene, here they are.

Here is a small maquette of that scene.

Also interesting is the scene small model. Apparently, when the train will turn left in the tunnel 4 it will go down at high speed.

Here is the model of one of the mine vehicles.

Back to the story line: Your journey continue by climbing the Grizzly Mountain. In the pic below you see a steam machine which is pulling the mine cars up to the hill.

...But the wire broken before you reach the peak, so all the mine cars fall backward...

...until you enter a new mine tunnel, which is just ready to explode! Note all the dynamite and "powder" sign at the entrance, it will be important for what will come next...

In this tunnel are a Mother bear and her baby bear trying to steal the fish from the mine workers...and the baby press the TNT detonator accidentally.

The mine cars will then be literally catapulted out of another tunnel thanks to the supposed dynamite blast.

As we will see below there will be lot of little geysers in the Grizzly Trail area, and the cars will go through a geyser area.

Your mine car back to the station, you will see the mother bear and the baby enjoying their dinner. They successfully stole all the fish in the mine. And that's it.

More sketches for the funny "accidental dynamite" sequence. Talking about bears, theese one will be obviously audio-animatronics and i'm curious to know if WDI Imagineers will use the AA skeletons from the former Disneyland Country Bear Jamboree bears...

This next rendering include different elements of the bears scenes all in one artwork.

Next picture shows the Grizzly Peak model with the mine cars going up the first lift.

And this one show - i think - the part of the ride with the two tunnels and dynamite blast.

But there will be more in Grizzly Trail than the Grizzly Peak ride as the small town of Grizzly Gulch will be build. Actually you'll see details of each building and their own stories in the mine town, not only about the Grizzly Mountain mine company itself, but also about the rest of the town. All this will have a Frontierland theming, and for the first time in all Frontierland's history, this one will be full of fun water splash...

...most of them interactive...

...as well as a little geyser area.

Let's end this last HKDL artwork article with more pictures of the model.

For those of you who love WDI artwork i remind you that the Disneyland Paris "From Sketch to Reality book" which will tell you all about the creation of DLP include 250 WDI Artwork (!) and 500 pictures of the park on 320 pages. Have a look at the video below which will show you the whole book!

The book is still available either in its english or french edition and you can still enjoy a 20% discount special offer and the book is now available with an immediate shipping! Reviews from all those who have already received the book are "over the top" so, place your order now for a gorgeous collector's edition copy while the special offer on this wonderful book is still available! To know more about the book and how to order and send your payment please go HERE or use the Paypal one-click purchase button below.

6 comments:

SP
said...

Wow, this was amazing !I think that the imagineers did a fantastic job ! It's filled with life, so much detailed and most of all really fun ! I could not stop smiling at every bear scene !And the village looks great with all its interactive water elements.It's gonna be fantastic ! And I hope the development of this "geyser town" might someday give ideas for the Paris imagineers regarding the geyser area behind the Phantom Manor...

Yes, I think we all want something - 'anything!!' - to be done with those ugly geysers that 'not so charmingly' conclude the riverboat cruise in DLP.If only they could build/pave round the whole river to make a complete circle. (It's kinda a dead end when you get to the keelboats on the other direct opposite side too)Love all this artwork! I'd like to see as much story/characters in Thunder Mountain (DLP) as I'm not a huge fan of when it just goes into the black tunnels either.

It looks awesome! Very well done and original, but unfortunately I think that I won't be back in Hong Kong for a very long time. For me it's too far away to go often.

I'm also really glad to see a new land and attractions not based in any character/ movie/ franchise like in the good old days. I hope to see Disney building more places and attractions like these in the Western (far more accessible to me) Resorts.

Looks like a fantastic original attraction. Appears to have a great amount of tricky special effects and I just hope these effects will work well and not be prone to break Downs. Seems like a lot of Disney rides have that problem. The most infamous of course expedition everest. But even here in Anaheim the grand finale of big thunder hasn't worked for years. Its supposed to simulate an earthquake the rocks before rumbled and vibrate all around you but now its just a cheap projection of rocks falling in front of you...not thrilling at all. I know a refurb is planned sometime soon but until it happens ill keep complaining cause this classic ride deserves the best!

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